


The New York Bulletin

by Lady_Layla



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Because she made him, Coffee, Drabbles, Enjoy your Hot Bean Water, F/M, Frank holds Karen hostage, Frank is a troll, Frank is hiding in the shadows, Frank is smug, Humor, I'm adding creamer because I love myself, Matt tries to tell Karen what to do, One-Shots, Satan Coffee, Snowball Fight, Spoilers for the Punisher, Tumblr Prompts, it doesn't work, prompts, undercover journalist, winter au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-15 20:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9255854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Layla/pseuds/Lady_Layla
Summary: This is going to be a series of drabbles, prompts, and one shot's centered around the Kastle ship.Tags will be updated as I add more





	1. Friends

**Author's Note:**

> This first work is something I posted to tumblr. Based on a prompt by evilsquirrel18:
> 
> Can someone make a fic around these lines? I have this half baked idea in my head. Hahaha
> 
> Matt: You can’t be friends with the Punisher, Karen.
> 
> Karen: I’m not friends with the Punisher, Matt. I’m friends with Frank.
> 
> Frank in the shadows: *smug look*
> 
> Ok, the Frank in the shadows is just my funny idea. Haha

Matt is waiting for her when she gets home from work that night…again.

It’s getting really old, really quickly and she’s still not sure how he got her new address.

This time she agrees to go to dinner and hear him out.

It’s about Frank.

It’s always about Frank.

They’ve stopped at a crosswalk and she’s pulling her jacket tighter because it’s mid-winter in New York City and she wasn’t made for this.

That’s when she sees him.

Frank is standing in the shadows of an alley across the street directly in their path.

Karen has to hold back a laugh, because of course Frank has been following them, listening to Matt’s tirade.

She’s not surprised Matt hasn’t picked up on it yet; Frank knows him well and he’s very careful.

They’re crossing the street when she decides to stop thinking about Frank Castle and pay attention to Matt again.

She regrets it almost immediately.

“You can’t be friends with the Punisher, Karen.”

Really? That’s his argument? Sometimes she’s surprised he got through law school.

“I’m not friends with the Punisher, Matt.” She takes a second to enjoy his look of relief before continuing, “I’m friends with Frank Castle.”

She leaves him standing there sputtering, with a quick kiss on the cheek and a ‘Thanks for dinner’.

Frank is smirking as she passes him in the alley and she doesn’t bother to hide her eye roll.

A few blocks closer to her place he falls into step next to her and he’s still smirking.

“You look awfully smug.”

“I just like seeing you tell Red off is all.”

Karen squints at him as they walk up the steps of her building.

“I don’t think that counts as a telling off, Frank.”

He just shrugs and follows her inside.


	2. Snowball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From Carry-the-Sky on tumblr: Oooo this winter au one seems very fitting for these two: "You were walking your dog by my house and I was aiming to hit the tree behind you with a snowball but I just nailed you in the face I’m sO SORry do you want hot chocolate??"

It's the beginning of January when Karen gets to know the neighbors in her new apartment building.

She's heading home from work early one afternoon (after three people showed up sick, Ellison sent them all home) when a few of the kids drag her into a snowball fight; something she hasn't done since she was a little girl in Vermont.

Kate, Sam, and Michael, the three kids who live across the hall, declare themselves to be on a single team and Karen to be on the other one because she's an adult.

Despite the fact that they have an advantage, with wall already built, Karen finds that she hasn't forgotten the secret snowball tactics she and Kevin spent hours coming up with.

Soon enough Kate's the only one left, the boys dying overly dramatic and loud deaths as the little girl giggles and hides behind a tree.

She peeks out every now and then, but Karen quickly notices she has a pattern to which side she picks and Karen is quickly scooping up snow to form into her winning snowball.

Her back is to the tree and she's so focused on her perfect snowball, that when the tell-tale giggle and half-hearted snowball come she whips around, letting her own fly without looking.

Which turns out to have been a mistake.

A man that she vaguely recognizes as the attractive new guy in the apartment next door has chosen to walk his gray pitbull right in front of the tree.

Karen's snowball impacts with startling accuracy, breaking apart all over his face, stopping him in his tracks.

"What the fu---"

The laughter of the kids must register as he cuts himself off quickly.

"Oh my gosh!! I am so, so sorry!" Karen gasps, running over as quick as she can.

The dog is jumping and barking excitedly with all the noise and her neighbor has to shove him down while cleaning off his own face.

"Really, I'm incredibly sorry! I did not mean to hit you, I swear. Can I make it up to you with hot chocolate or coffee?"

"No, I'm fine. I--" His voice cuts off again as he finally looks up at Karen, who's blushing a bright red and hoping he'll just mistake it for the cold.

He looks her over again before a smirk touches the corners of his lips. "Yeah. You know what, I'd love some coffee."

"Oh...okay. Great!"

"I'm just going to finish walking Boss here."

Karen grins at him and the dog.

"Great," she says again. "I'm Karen in 4A."

"Well, Karen from 4A, I'm Frank from 4C. I'll see you in a little bit?"

She nods at him as he continues on his walk with the dog before ignoring the taunts of the children to hurry up to her apartment and make sure it's acceptable.


	3. Hot Bean Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another tumblr prompt...kind of? It was on my dash. A text picture that says, "People who brag about drinking black coffee?? Okay enjoy your hot bean water. I'm adding creamer because I love myself."
> 
> THEN GoddamnitKastle asked for it as a Kastle fic so...whoops?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just something short and quick!

Frank Castle was a god damn troll and _nothing_ could convince Karen otherwise.

He'd done it...again.

Left in the middle of the night, after moving her to the bed from the couch. But, before he'd left he'd changed the coffee.

"Black is the best way to drink coffee." He'd say and had started keeping some strong stuff from overseas in her apartment. It didn't take him long to figure out that Karen _hated_ black coffee, that night in the diner was a fluke and so stressful she could have been drinking straight vodka and not noticed.

Then, she'd made the mistake of telling him about it when he was extolling the many virtues of his Satan drink.

"Enjoy your hot bean water," she'd said. "I'm adding creamer because I love myself."

Frank had scoffed at her and a week later, she'd gotten up late and hurriedly poured the contents of her coffee pot into a tumbler added her usual dash of creamer and left for work.

It wasn't until almost an hour later that she'd taken a sip and almost spat it back out. Frank had switched her filter for one of his own with the stronger coffee and her usual amount of creamer wasn't enough to cover the taste.

Glaring balefully at her tumbler she dumped the liquid out and headed to the break room to get some of the office coffee.

 

When she got home that night, she'd noticed all of her coffee had been replaced and her creamer missing.

Sighing, Karen turned right around and headed to the store on the corner.

He could be a heathen all he wanted, but Karen was having none of it.

 


	4. Dogs don't wear clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt: Dogs don't wear clothes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the wonderful EvilBunnyKing for the prompt!

Karen has to stop and blink a few times at the sight standing in front of her before she can speak.

“Frank, dog’s don’t wear clothes?” It comes out more of a question than a statement as she looks from Frank to his rescue dog, Boss.

They're wearing matching black hoodies and Boss even has what looked to be dog booties on his feet.

Frank doesn't look away from the scope on his gun as she speaks or to reply. “Page, it’s fucking winter in New York. You’re bundled up aren’t you? I don’t want the dog to freeze to death while he’s out here.”

Karen tilts her head to the side, bringing a hand up to her mouth to stifle her laughter.

“You bring that coffee?”

“Sure thing, Frank.”

She sets the thermos down next to him and rolls her eyes when he finally looks up to catch her eye.

“Let me know if you need anything else.”

He doesn’t reply so she turns and walks back to the door leading back into her apartment building, give Boss a good scratch behind the ear before she leaves.

The door has been closed for a few minutes before the silence is broken again.

“’Sides, it ain’t like I dressed you up in a fucking tutu or some shit. Gotta stay warm don’t we, boy?”

Boss huffs out his agreement and settles back against Frank’s leg, his tail swishing back and forth slowly.


	5. Halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank's reaction to Punisher costumes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this belated Halloween fic!

"What in the hell is that?"

Karen looks up from her laptop and over to Frank who's been sitting by the living room window of her new apartment. It has a good view of the entrance of the U shaped building and also the street. He hasn't looked away from the window so she gets up and walks over to him, her eyes searching the building's small "courtyard" to see what annoyed him.

It takes her a second before she spots it; there's a group of preteens, maybe teenagers, that are just leaving with their candy hauls. Two of them are dressed up as Iron Man, there's a Hawkeye, and at the back of the group she spots a familiar skull logo on the front of a black hoodie.

"That would be a Punisher costume, Frank."

"The hell for?"

Karen hides her smile behind a hand and she leaves the window to return to her spot on the couch. "Maybe he looks up to you?"

There's a few minutes of silence as Frank processes this information before he speaks again. "What the hell kind of parent lets their kid go out like that?"

Karen looks up at him. "Well, there are several options actually. His parents might also be fans, they don't care what he does or wears, he might have snuck it out of the house or he might not have any."

Frank finally looks away from the window, head swinging over to look at Karen.

She waits for him to speak up again, but he doesn't, just goes back to looking out the window.

By the time trick-or-treating is over, he's apparently seen six different Punisher get ups and as Karen waves him out of her apartment (he hates that they leave the building open for the kids so she knows he'll check the whole building before he leaves) he's  still muttering to himself about it.

He only stops when she hands him a mug of coffee to say, "Night ma'am." and she doesn't hear his boots stomp away until her door is shut and he hears her deadbolt click and the chain slide across the door.

Karen heads into the bedroom for the night and she wonders what Frank would think of the Punisher lingerie she saw in a specialty store the other day. The thought makes her laugh out loud as she crawls beneath the covers and clicks the light off.


	6. Undercover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen's acting a little off so Frank decides to follow her on an undercover adventure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For EBK and those commenters who wanted to see Frank's reaction to Punisher lingerie

"Ma'am?"

Shit! Shit, shit, shit.

Karen isn't expecting Frank tonight, she told him she'd be heading out to do a little bit of undercover work tonight.

The safe kind she assured him and she's going to be working with Trish, who doesn't always rush blindly into things. (That had earned her a snort and a look that she ignored.)

"Hang on!" She can't remember the last time her voice sounded so strangled as she rushed to throw a robe on over her outfit and poke her head out of her bedroom.

"Frank, I thought you weren't going to come by tonight."

Damn, she shouldn't have said that, now he's doing that thing where he just stares at her, it's a familiar look of course, like he's staring into her soul.

"Thought I'd check in." He finally says, still not looking away.

"Well, I'm f-fine. Just going to meet up with Trish in a few minutes to work on this story."

He grunts at her and turns to her coffee pot to refill his thermos. Karen withdraws her head and tries to stay quiet as she paces back and forth.

There's ten minutes of shuffling around outside of her door before she hears him again.

"Going, ma'am."

"Okay. You stay safe out there, Frank."

Another grunt and she sags in relief as she hears her front door close behind him, it's the only time she's regretted giving him a key.

She quickly sheds the robe, pulls on a tight fitting black dress, matching boots, and heads into her bathroom to apply her makeup, which turns out resembling her goth high-school phase than she would have liked, but she's short on time.

In fact she's in such a hurry that as she grabs her tiny little clutch and dashes out of her apartment (but always stopping to lock the door) she doesn't hear very familiar footsteps following several paces behind.

* * *

Trish is waiting for her outside the "stage" door and when Karen comes to a stop she bends over as much as she's able too in this dress, wheezing just a little.

"We really need to get you into shape, Page."

Karen waves her concern away as she straightens up and slowly looks around the ally of the so called gentleman's club, seemingly satisfied after a few minutes she pulls the door open.

"Yeah, well Frank showed up at my apartment while I was getting ready." Her voice trails off as they head inside and the door swings closed behind them.

The ally is silent, well as silent as anything gets in New York, for several long minutes.

"You're the gentleman, Castle."

The interjection of, "Good of you to notice, Jones." is ignored.

"You get to go inside and see what our intrepid reporter duo are up too. I'll stay out here and watch the doors."

She ignores the grumbles and looks away as most of the layers of Punisher gear are shed for a more regular look.

* * *

Karen is incredibly surprised that the other workers are even talking to her and Trish, but apparently the novelty of using a strip club for the meeting place of several high level criminal types wore off fairly quickly. Sure, in the beginning the tips had been much better, but it didn't last and several of the men got violent when things didn't go their way, taking it out on the dancers and staff alike.

This was their third weekend at the club and hopefully their last night. Tonight, two of the regular dancers had called in sick which left Karen and Trish as the fill-ins instead of their usual cocktail serving gig.

Crap. Karen's not even sure what's going to be expect of her as she removes the dress and pulls on the set of lingerie she'll need to wear. Of course tonight would also be a theme night.

Trish doesn't look any more pleased as she pulls on what looks to be some kind of sexy Daredevil costume and Karen can't help but laugh at it wondering what Matt would think.

"So... uh... what should we do?" Karen asks to a collective gasp. She and Trish have to remind the others that they are in fact reporters and have never done things like this before.

(Well, Trish confides later that she has done something similar, but for an ex boyfriend in her apartment. So not exactly the same.)

After getting several helpful tips and pointers they head out to the stage. Proceeding to give Frank Castle what he's sure is a goddamn heart attack where he's standing in the shadows by the bar.

Karen's wearing an obscene sort of costume, but what is practically killing him is the familiar skull logo splashed across the front of the whole get-up, what little of it there is anyway.

He's not sure he's even breathing as he watches Karen and Trish dance together and apart. Karen winds herself around a pole like it's... like... well he's pretty sure he hasn't seen anything like this before. Of course he's watched porn and stuff, but he'd been with Maria for so long he never felt the need to go to places like this.

Now he can't tear his eyes away from the two reporters as they slowly shed most of their outfits leaving them in almost nothing and he chokes as he see's the skull logo emblazoned on the three small scraps of fabric that are left covering Karen.

Shit.

Frank's not sure what's going on as he stumbles quickly out of the club and back onto the street, he waves Jones away as she approaches in concern, and sinks down onto the pavement.

Shit.

He hasn't felt like this since... shit.

A few minutes later Jones comes back out of the club smirking at him as he yanks his vest back into place.

"I think you can handle them from here. I've got places to be tonight."

He ignores her laughter too as he stalks away down the street trying to focus on his mission and not on Karen Goddamn Page.


	7. Hostage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 300ish words showing Karen convincing Frank to take her "hostage". The Punisher Season 1 Spoilers

Her ears are ringing.

Two explosions in one day will do that too a person she’s sure.

Her ears are ringing and Karen ignores it in favor of looking at Frank who’s limping towards the kitchen doors.

“C’mon.”

“Hey.” She calls and he turns to look at her.

“That hallway is filled with cops. You can’t go out there.”

“Karen—”

“No, Frank. I’m not going to let you go out there and get arrested.”

“What do you suggest?”

Karen wonders if she should get used to the wary look on his face as he asks and thinks he definitely needs to get used to it. She digs back into her purse for the gun she picked up in the hotel room and holds it out to him.

Franks eyes widen. “Karen, what the hell? We don’t have time for this.”

“Frank. It’s okay, just pretend you’re holding me hostage still, then you can get out of here.”

“No.” He sounds like a Marine now, firm and unyielding in his refusal to let his soldier do something stupid. But, she’s not his soldier and she’s going to do something stupid anyway.

“Take. The. Damn. Gun.” She growls at him, smacking it against his chest and letting go so he takes it automatically.

“This is how we’re getting out of this, like it or not.”

Frank glares at her, opens his mouth to say argue again but the noise from outside startles them both into looking at the door. He quickly empties the gun and takes a test shot in the other direction to prove there aren’t any bullets left.

“I trust you, Frank.”

He sighs as she walks over, turns, and positions her back against his front.

“Ready.”

“This is a stupid idea, Karen.”

She tilts her head to look at him and gives him a tight smile.

“Let’s go.”


End file.
